grabs his bag, guitar, IT folder, bottle of water and is out of the door.
“The bus, Sapphire! You’re going to miss the school bus!”
“It’s OK, Mum, you go to work. I’ve still got to make my packed lunch. The bus doesn’t leave for ten minutes.”
The door slams, and Mum’s gone.
Ten minutes. I open the fridge door and look inside. Milk, eggs, yoghurt… I stare at them. What did I open the fridge for?
Wake up, Sapphire, you’re supposed to be making your packed lunch. But just then Sadie whines, very quietly and pitifully. I slam the fridge door and hurry to her side. In a second, the decision is made. I’m not going to school. I am taking Sadie to the vet. I know where his surgery is – on Geevor Hill. My birthday money is in the chest under my bed. Forty pounds. If the vet sees that Sadie’s sick, surely he can do something for forty pounds?
“Come on, Sadie. Come on, now, good girl. We’re going to see someone who’ll make you feel better.”
I clip on Sadie’s collar and tug gently. She clambers awkwardly to her feet, and pads slowly across the floor to the front door.
I look up and down the street. No one’s about. “Come on, Sadie.” We make our way very slowly along the beach road and then up to the corner by the graveyard, where Geevor Hill begins. The vet’s surgery is halfway up. Sadie pants like a dog ten times her age. Her head droops to her chest.
“Why ent you at school, my girl?”
Oh, no, it’s Mrs Eagle. She’ll tell Mum.
“Inset day,” I say quickly.
“Never had they in my day,” says Mrs Eagle critically. “You belong to be at school on a working day.”
I smile brightly, and slip past her. “Just taking Sadie for a walk, Mrs Eagle.”
“Don’t look to me like she wants to walk up Geevor; looks to me like she wants to go back downlong,” grumbles Mrs Eagle. I escape as fast as I can, almost dragging Sadie.
The vet’s surgery is the one with the blue door. But on the blue door there is a laminated notice: SURGERY HOURS, ST PIRANS: TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS ONLY. 10 A.M. – 5 P.M.
It is Monday. No surgery. Sadie looks up at me in mournful exhaustion. All at once I know in every fibre of my body that Mum and Conor are wrong. Sadie’s condition is serious. There isn’t time to wait for tomorrow’s surgery. Sadie needs help now, and there’s only one person who might be able to give it. Granny Carne. Everyone round Senara goes to Granny Carne when they have a trouble they can’t solve. I think of Granny Carne’s amber, piercing eyes, and the power in her. She’ll know what’s wrong with Sadie. She’ll help her, if anyone can.
At the same moment I hear the growl of a bus engine, changing gear at the bottom of the hill. I look back and there is a shabby blue bus with SENARA CHURCHTOWN on the destination board. Home. I stick out my hand.
The bus lumbers past without stopping. The driver turns to me and yells something I can’t hear, then as he gets towards the top of the hill I see he’s indicating left, pulling in at the bus stop to wait for me.
“Can’t stop on the hill, see,” he explains as I climb up the steps, pushing Sadie ahead of me. “Lucky for you I’m ahead of myself this morning.”
“Thanks for waiting.”
“I could see that poor old dog couldn’t hardly get up Geevor.”
I find my fare, and go to the back of the bus. He thought Sadie was old. That must be because she looks so weak.
I flop down on the back seat, with Sadie at my feet. The driver pulls out on to the road again, and picks up speed. On we go past the grey stone houses, past the rugby ground and the caravan site, past the farm at the edge of town and to the crossroads where the school bus turns left. But this bus turns right, on to the open road that leads across the moors to Senara. A streak of pale, wintry sun lights up the hills. The landscape opens wide and beautiful around us. I take a deep breath of freedom. No crowds, no busy streets. Just a narrow grey road rising over the wild country towards home.
When the old blue bus drives off into the distance, leaving me at the roadside with Sadie, the reality of what I’ve done hits me. This is the stop before Senara Churchtown, and the nearest stop to Granny Carne’s cottage. There are no houses here, only the road and the hills covered in bracken, furze and heather. There’s a wide black scar across the hills, from a gorse fire.
No one is about. The road is grey and empty. But that’s what I wanted, isn’t it? I didn’t want to see anyone I knew. If I walk along the road a little way, there’s a footpath that leads up to Granny Carne’s cottage.
“Come on, Sadie,” I say encouragingly. “It’s not far now.” But this time Sadie doesn’t respond to my voice. She slumps on the rough grass between the road and the ditch, drops her head on to her paws and closes her eyes.
“Sadie!”
Very slowly, with what looks like a great effort, Sadie opens her eyes. They stare at me dully, without recognition. After a few blank moments, her lids close again.
Terror runs through me like an electric shock. I think she’s dead. I throw myself down on the grass beside her and press my ear to her side. I can’t hear anything. She’s gone. It is so terrible that I can’t move or speak. And then, very slowly, her ribs move under her skin. There’s a rusty, tearing sound in her throat, as if she’s trying to breathe through barbed wire. But she’s breathing. She’s alive.
It’s all my fault. I should never have forced her up Geevor Hill. Now she can’t even walk. She can hardly breathe. What am I going to do? I look wildly up and down the road. No one’s in sight. A sparrow hops out of a furze bush, cocks its head at me, then hops away again. “Sadie!” I try to lift her into my lap. She’s heavy, limp and hard to move. But she’s warm. She’s alive. “Hold on, Sadie. I’ll get help for you. I promise. Please, please don’t die.”
But how can I get help? If only I had a mobile. But even if I had, it would be no good here. Everyone in Senara complains that they can’t get a signal. Phone box. There’s a phone box down by the church. How long would it take me to run there? Ten minutes maybe, and then I’d have to make the call, and then another ten minutes back. That’s too long.
If I leave her now, she’ll think I’ve abandoned her again, and she’ll give up.
“Oh, Sadie, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…” I hug her tight, trying to pour life into her. She can’t die like this – for nothing. She wasn’t even ill yesterday. She was so full of life.
I put my hand gently on her head, and stroke her as reassuringly as I can. “Hold on. You’re going to be all right.” But for the first time ever, Sadie twists her head away from my hand. Feebly, she struggles to heave herself off my lap.
“Get up, Sapphire. Stand back from her. Give her air,” says a voice behind me.
